DOC boss out of the loop on plan to bring ICE to Rikers
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Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie told the City Council on Friday that she had yet to discuss with the mayor a controversial, yet-to-be-issued executive order allowing ICE on Rikers Island. Photo by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
By Jacob Kaye
Top officials at the Department of Correction said Friday that the mayor’s office has yet to speak with them about the potential return of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers to Rikers Island, despite Mayor Eric Adams announcing the change weeks ago.
DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie and DOC attorney James Conroy said that the agency had yet to be consulted on the mayor’s controversial move to break from the city’s sanctuary laws and allow federal immigration agents to conduct criminal investigations in the jail complex.
The lack of the mayor’s coordination with the DOC about an executive order he’s sworn to issue was unveiled during a City Council budget hearing on Friday.
“I've not seen an executive order,” Maginley-Liddie said.
The commissioner said that she has “had conversations” about the move but declined to say who with.
“Those are privileged conversations,” she said.
However, the commissioner said explicitly that she did not discuss the order with the city’s Law Department, which the mayor has claimed is working on the executive order.
A spokesperson for the mayor declined to answer questions regarding the DOC’s involvement in the executive order and instead referred the Eagle to comments Adams made about the issue on Monday.
“Any conversations around policies that we're going to roll out, when it's time to announce it, we will announce it,” Adams said during his “off-topic” press conference last week. “I'm not going to get ahead of the [corporation] counsel.”
Maginley-Liddie is only the latest commissioner appointed by Adams to say that they’ve been left in the dark when it came to the controversial order.
On Thursday, Commissioner of Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Manuel Castro told councilmembers that neither he nor his agency had “been part of any of these conversations to change these laws.”
During the same Thursday hearing, Molly Shaeffer, who leads the administration’s asylum-seeker affairs office, also said that she had not been consulted on the order.
While Castro and Shaeffer’s offices may not be necessary to implement the yet-to-be-revealed executive order, the DOC will be.
“We have to understand that an executive order that allows for a federal agency to show up in your jail complex requires coordination with you,” City Councilmember Lincoln Restler said on Friday. “You need to know what the terms are, and what the agreement is, and what space you're giving up, and all the costs associated.”
Adams first announced the order on Feb. 13 following his meeting with President Donald Trump’s boarder czar, Tom Homan.
The mayor said that his order would allow the federal government to skirt around the city’s sanctuary laws, which have been in place since 2014 – ICE previously had offices on Rikers but left the notorious island after the laws were passed.
“We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island,” Adams said in a February statement. “ICE agents would specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs.”
Adams’ announcement – which came days after the Department of Justice proposed dropping the corruption case against him, and the same day a federal prosecutor resigned in protest of the move, accusing Adams of cutting a deal with the DOJ in the process – prompted an immediate rebuke from the City Council.
The legislative body, which has already sued the mayor twice in his three years in office, threatened to potentially bring a lawsuit against Adams should he follow through on the executive order and should they feel it violates city law.
“The mayor’s announcement of the intention to issue an executive order that allows the Trump administration access to Rikers is concerning, but we must see language of any purported executive order to evaluate its legality,” three councilmembers, including City Council Speaker and now-mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams, said in February. “We are prepared to defend against violations of the law, but this announcement only deepens the concern that the mayor is prioritizing the interests of the Trump Administration over those of New Yorkers.”
As of Friday – nearly a month after the meeting with Homan – Adams had yet to issue the executive order, despite a warning issued by Homan on Fox & Friends the day after their meeting.
“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City,” Homan said. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is this agreement we came to?’”
